Editor, Times-Union: Last Saturday's newspaper carried an article in religion briefs denouncing the jailing of a Serbian Orthodox priest in Macedonia.
What the article failed to report is that Orthodox churches are jurisdictional. In all countries of origin, they are based on nationality and language. So that there are only Syrian Orthodox churches in Syria, only Russian Orthodox churches in Russia, only Greek Orthodox churches in Greece, only Macedonian Orthodox churches in Macedonia and so on. They consider these "national churches." Some countries even write them into their constitutions.
In January, the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (a bicameral U.S. Congressional Committee) published a document titled "Religious Freedom in Southeastern Europe", which reads in part, "Issues range from discriminatory legal schemes denying small religious communities registration to harsh government actions against unpopular religious groups and their leaders."
By and large all the Eastern countries where Orthodoxy is practiced view a priest from another diocese as encroaching on "their" territory. The reason is that for many centuries church membership was used to determine nationality.
As a melting pot, America has all of these different Orthodox churches in communities where immigrants have gathered to live and worship. So that Orthodox believers are not just Orthodox, they are a specific nationality of Orthodoxy. Only in the past few years have American Orthodox churches been organized.
Use of the vernacular in liturgy was one of the main reasons for the split with Rome in 1054. It is what set the Eastern church apart from the Western church.
The arrests of priests of other nationalities is not uncommon in Eastern Europe. According to its constitution, Greece allows free worship in only one church - the Greek Orthodox Church. Greece jails Macedonian Orthodox priests who enter Greece to preach to the Macedonian minority living there, as they jail leaders of many other religions they consider a threat.
I think it is important for us to learn why things like this occur in a part of the world we don't understand.
Virginia Nizamoff Surso Syracuse Via e-mail
Light Sentence
Editor, Times-Union: I, too, was absolutely shocked to read the article of July 15 titled "Reed Suspends Schues' Sentences." I have always had the utmost respect for Judge Reed, but this time, he really blew it. According to the article, Mr. Schue was found tending marijuana plants on his property, officers found an underground growing operation beneath an outbuilding, and they found "additional evidence of possession and distribution of marijuana." It goes on to say that officers seized more than $4,000 in cash, 14 firearms, 125 cultivated marijuana plants, drug paraphernalia and cultivation equipment. The last sentence was a kicker: "Further charges were not pursued against Kenneth Schue because there was no evidence he was dealing marijuana."
Excuse me! What do you call $4,000 in cash, assorted firearms and a marijuana growing operation of that size? Sounds like evidence to me. Are we to believe that the Schues were using all that marijuana themselves?
Through a plea agreement, the Schues will spend their sentences on probation, and they have to pay a total of $2,000 for drug interdiction fees, and various minor fees and court costs. They still come out making a profit.
So what does this teach us? That in Kosciusko County, you can knowingly and willingly break the law, but if you know the right people to show up in court and write letters on your behalf, you can get away with a little lecture and a measly fine.
It must make those people who are serving time for lesser offenses feel like they got a raw deal. And in the future, how will Judge Reed be able to send small-time drug users and dealers to jail? And why wasn't the Kosciusko County Prosecutor pushing for a harsher sentence? In my opinion, drug dealers and users are responsible for the vast majority of crime committed. They are the very reason children go hungry, neglected and even abused. They deserve the harshest of penalties.
